Tell Me If You Still Care
by Unbridled.mind
Summary: How did Nicole Scott join the Bureau? Her grown up daughter finally finds out how she came to be, in the aftermath of losing her grandmother. Nicole/Antonio. Read-Review-Add me to your faves. Chapter 6 is the finale! Write from the heart to the pen. I do.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey folks I've had this on my mind for a while so here it is. I dedicate this to BlindLovefreeSpirit for obvious reasons. **

Tell me if you still care aka How I joined the Bureau. This story is connected to Untitled and When Doves Cry so read up on them to fully understand it.

- Me.

* * *

Nicole unzipped her gym bag and took out the bulging brown envelope. Rivers watched her closely, waiting her signs of weakness and softly stroking his gun with his index finger.

"I don't trade." He told her in advanced, recognising the eight thousand dollar packet from earlier in the day. "If your punk ass boyfriend can't move his goods…"

"He's not my boyfriend." She abruptly cut him off and he thought of ways to make her regret it.

"He should know better to ask me for compensation."

"He didn't send me if that's what you think. I'm here for _me_. I need protection."

Rivers leaned back in his chair as far as was possible. His eyes did a tilt shot on her body and he wondered how in all those years he never really noticed her; it was because she was never really around. "Why should I protect you?"

"Don't flatter yourself." He gripped the gun in his lap this time, fully aware that if she was male, or worked for him or that if they were in public and not in his grimy private office; she would be choking out words and coughing blood for disrespecting him. "I need something to make a statement."

"A throwdown?"

"So it can jam and blow up my hand? Hell no. Something imported, like the coke that killed Tiffany Pell at Ricochet two months ago."

"What do you know about that?" He asked, whipping out the gun for dramatic effect like a Shakespearian actor in theatre.

"I know it was my club, my life that was snorted up her nose that night and I've got to get away from this sack-of-crap city. I want a Les Baer Premier II Tactical .45 Pistol and I know you can get it for me."

"In return?"

"You can have your money back; this covers the cost at least three times over."

"If I was him; I'd come after you."

"If he does…I'll be ready."

I never should have given her a key to my apartment. I know this because it's noon when she arrives with Chinese takeaway and I'm still in bed; half-hung-over, half-asleep. She says there's nothing I've done or thought of doing that she's not an expert in and I'm forced to believe her when she's pouring a Bloody Mary down my throat and coaxing me out of bed with Chaka Khan and Mary J Blige's 'Disrespectful'. I know she's not going anywhere and thought I usually put up a good fight in the battle of wills; I surrender because she's hurting. I suppose for someone who lived so much of their life without their mother to actually lose her to something traditional like old age must be quite ironic, though, when you factor in the Liver damage, Grandma paid for her ills twice over. This has made Nicole Scott, the female Zeus, think of her own mortality. Maybe because she put her life on the line so often or because she knows that she's not untouchable and the fact that she will one day die is her Achilles heel.

She sits on a cushion across from me, reading my face so I'll admit to something without the need for questions, but she knows the score; I'm a good girl really.

"I spoke to Jess last week." She says with a sigh and I can feel a reminiscent anecdote coming on. It's never the one I want to here, but entertaining nonetheless.

"Field work?"

"No, nothing like that. In fact, she's leaving the Bureau. For good this time."

"I thought it ruined your life." I say with the bitterness of having her shut down any aspirations of joining myself, just a few years ago. "You didn't want to hold me back."

"Maya; you're not me."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you can't make the choices I made because you're not in a position to make them. You have a mother. You have your own apartment, not relying on a man to give you a home and you are _not_ alone."

"If you had never joined, I wouldn't be living in this nice apartment. What are you so afraid of?"

"That you'll walk into a death trap and I won't let you."

"I'm twenty-five, didn't we pass that stage?"

"You are not me. _I_ take the bullets for this family. I'll die before you have to make those sacrifices."

Our emotions hang over our heads, suspended in motion and clogging up the air in the room. We've sparred since the day I was born and like a Scott; I too am consistent. I know I've hurt her because I'm just like her and it's in our truths that we deliver the most hurt. Her resistance to my F.B. I. plans punctured my heart in a way I never thought was possible, at least not from her. She has loved me with reckless abandon, fear and honesty and I've paid her with rebellion, independence and risks; an integral part of her healing process died and I can't help but feel I'm also killing it slowly.

"I hope she's happy." I say to break the ice and she follows my cue.

"Me too."

She plays Al B. Sure's Nite and Day and speaks of sororities and light-skinned guys being en vogue. I let her talk down her defences and ease her into a conversation she has avoided for the last eighteen years of my life. The name Darnell sets my dad on fire at how he hurt her. How? I don't know…yet.

"I wish I knew what she was thinking." She says out of nowhere. It's said casually as though she's not speaking about her own mother at all, like it's a philosophical question with no answer.

"She was glad to be yours. She was ready to die." I don't know what I'm saying or where the words come from but she hears me.

"Did you know she was _relieved_ when her mother died?" Of course I know, as she's asked me this question four times in the last two weeks alone. "How does that happen?"

"I don't know but it does."

"Don't resent me Maya. I want you to live a full life, and you will, so don't resent that."  
We're back to a topic we can't get away from because it's the centre of our relationship. It defines who we are. I was born in the Bureau. I don't know anything else. I wish she understood this. "When did it first take over?" Now that's a question she'll rise to because it's a challenge.

"You mean, how did I get started?" I nod, on the brink of decoding the enigma that is the reason why my sister and I exist, my parents met and we are, at the best and worst of times, a family.

_New Years Eve 1994_

"You don't really know me, you just wanna do what you wanna do. That's not the way it should be, no, you should listen to me…" Nicole watched the short one with the black ringlets singing, from the bar. She was nearly twenty-four and already the manager of Jean Gregory's club Ricochet. They had known each other since she waited and bussed tables at his restaurant as a teen and hired her for her tenacity and business savvy. She made him look good and he gave her enough control over events and entertainment for his appreciation of her legs not to be construed as misogyny. Tonight was one of those nights she had spent two months ignoring his advice and withholding details for; she couldn't wait for the feature to hit the local newspaper about the young, go-getter who put this whole thing together. The man standing next to her, going over his lines mentally, didn't know who she was.

"Yo baby…" And she was gone. Tamika and Latocha were now going to church with their harmonized power vocal, "I don't mean to be demanding but I need some understanding. I wanna be with you…" The club was packed with the right demographic, yuppies, college students, all with disposable incomes, high tops, gym memberships and cars. The revenue from that night alone was enough to earn her a bonus and she was already eyeing a red Ford Taurus to compete. She praised the day she went to college, it gave her an honest job and a future, and it also gave her the courage to finally shake that sick mother off her shoulder. She drank a French Kiss shot in his name and knew if she was going to spend the night alone, at least it was to the tunes of a live, fresh, young group from Atlanta; Xscape.

She woke up with a slight ringing in her ears; the staff's New Years' toast at six a.m. was enthusiastic and overdone. She lost count of what she had and they seemed as wasted as she was. Days later the newspaper came to her apartment in Austin, Chicago and instead of an ego boost, she had a reality check. This was followed by her recognition of the many messages Jean had left on her answer machine. The headline read, "Councillor's Daughter ODs at Nightclub."

The phone was ringing and she got the feeling that something bad was about to happen. She tried to mollify Jean, whose words for her were far from friendly. After the initial yelling was over and he hung up in anger, she buried her head in her hands and in silence, began to cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey folks I wrote this in record time because it was meant to be. (A)lison, it's great to know you still check up on me. **

- Me.

* * *

"He must have really fucked you up for you to come to me." Rivers unscrewed the cap to the bottle of gin.

"I just want the gun. Why are you making me wait?"

"You wanted one with the serial number still on, as I remember."

"Fine I can wait…but not for long."

"What's the hurry? Where have you got to go?"

"Anywhere." She sat uncharacteristically on his desk and he didn't resist another opportunity to be closer to her. He offered her a drink and after pouring his first, was surprised when she took it for herself, without a toast. She swirled the ice around the glass before asking, "Why did you invite me here?"

Rivers took the glass from her hand. "Why did you come?"

"You know what I want and so do I."

"Do you know what I want?"

She ignored his question and wrote it off as innuendo. "I always said Chicago would be the death of me; all this is a sign that it was true. Look at me; doing things I said I'd never do…again."

He sat next to her and spoke to her neck. His breath was warm. "Like what?"

"Like shooting my problems away."

He brushed her hair back behind her ear with his hand. "You don't scare me Nicole. In fact the way I see it; we're the same person." Her body shuddered in response.

"So how long was it before the police came by?" I ask, while she gets the "Serpentine Fire" vinyl spinning. I'm pretending to clean up my pristine yet unused kitchen as I search for the pink or green post-it bearing Pollock's number.

"They were already there when I got back; they didn't find anything, but because of her father they sent in the F.B.I. and that's when my life started to unravel…"

_1994_

Special Agent Lucian Fontaine started the fifth hour of interrogation. Nicole answered the questions like Nikki would have if Fontaine was the Vice Principal, a social worker or any figure of authority. She never said more than she wanted to and viewed authority itself as a myth. "Let's take it from the top. How did the drugs get into the club?"

"I don't know."

"They must have gotten in somehow."

"Yes they must." Nicole sat back in her chair. Her head was pounding.

"Who was it?"

"I don't know."

"You have affiliations with drug dealers though, don't you Nicole?"

"No I don't. _Lucian_."

"What about Darnell Sinclair? You were cosy; lived together for years, long-term boyfriend."

"I was young."

"You weren't stupid; you knew exactly what he was up to."

"That doesn't make me a drug dealer."

"In all that time you must have learnt a lot. I bet he groomed you to take over one day."

"Is that a question?"

"Is that a yes?"

"If it's a question; no."

"Do you know what I think?"

"Besides a lot of yourself?"

"Funny. I think you know who's behind this."

"Well I don't." A buzzer went off, making her head pound a little harder. A supervisor summoned Fontaine to the door and after a few whispered sentences, they let her go.

From then on, everything was different. Jean didn't look at her for weeks and after getting the cold shoulder from nearly everyone at work she contemplated handing in her notice. By the beginning of February the club was making a profit again but the unexpected entrance of Kelly was enough to confirm Nicole was on her way down.

"What do you want?" She asked impatiently in her office.

"He said he'd kick us out. The rent's late."

The rent's always late, Nicole wanted to say but didn't. "How late?"

"Three months. Nine hundred dollars should cover it. I will pay you back as soon as…" Nicole pulled out her cheque book and Kelly's facial expression changed.

"He doesn't take my cheques because they always bounce."

"This is my account, not yours."

"He wants it in cash Nikki or else me and Benny will be sleeping on a park bench before you know it."

"I'll call him. What's his name?"

"Who?"

"Your landlord."

"Ron Michaels."

"I'll fix it. So how are you?"

Kelly's eyes squinted with anger as though she was still eight years old. "Why can't you just give me the money?"

"I thought it was your rent."

"See, that's what I can't stand about you; always telling me what to do and how to do it. What, you don't trust me with your money now?"

"I've had enough of hustlers."

"You let them in your fancy club though. Yeah I heard." Nicole balled up her fists and held back the urge to slap her. "I knew you when you had nothing Nikki and I was willing to share. I need some help that's all."

"Why are you here? I haven't seen you in months or heard anything good. You're still with Benny, huh?" Kelly slammed the office door like a teenager, as expected, and Nicole popped some more painkillers as a consequence.

There was no Codamol strong enough for what happened next. Jean entered without knocking, with S.A. Fontaine in tow. In his hand he brandished her phone records from the last six months and though she had blocked them there were too many calls from Darnell for her to defend. That day ended prematurely and her world became smaller as she packed the contents of her office into a brown box.

I'm now burning up like my father as she remembers the humiliation, the loss and the failure of it all. The memory bleeds like a fresh wound and I can feel his ghost here with us, bringing her former self to her knees.

"You can lose years in a moment. Everything you live for just dies and there's no saving that. The wrong man is like a cancer, he permeates every area of your life and you have to cut him out; before he clips your wings and cuts your branches, because if not, you have nothing and that's when it's really paralyzing."

Nicole secured the baseball cap on her head, she was dressed like her old self; a pair of worn out jeans and tight top underneath a loose one, just like Nikki, but she wasn't a kid. She knew exactly what she was getting herself into. It wasn't hard to find him, but then again, it wasn't supposed to be. He needed her to need him, her weakness was his strength. She knew that now. There were seven people in the apartment, only two that she recognised; Darnell and his younger brother. The goon at the door tried to frisk her before the wheelchair-bound teenager warned him against it. She remembered his as a boy and hugged the outer shell of a child. Darnell stared and cleared his throat. She looked at him with an explanation in her eyes. The look of eagerness to justify herself and win his approval was her way in and he took her in without an explanation.

All it took was a, "You don't know what I've been through," followed by, "Since we've been apart…" and "I have nowhere…nothing…I need…" to be under his arm again and to his expectation and her excitement, the games had begun.

"Did you know what you were doing?"

"Not exactly. I had nothing to lose so I took my chances."

"Did you think he was behind it?"

"Not to begin with, I needed him as a lead."

"What did he have over you?"

"When I met him I was broken and he knew it, and as my life took shape, he took credit for it and I believed him…until I was on my own, doing it for myself, and I did the unthinkable. I left him and no-one leaves Darnell Sinclair."

"No-one leaves Darnell Sinclair. No-one." He rubbed her thigh possessively. "So why did you come back?"

She gritted her teeth; he hadn't changed. "I had to."  
"Remember when…?"

"Can we not?" She said with irritation. He was taken aback. "You said if I came back we'd put that all behind us. I got your messages. You promised."

"You didn't return my calls."

"I heard you."

He stared at her with the will to penetrate her mind. In her eyes, there was nothing obvious, except fatigue. He was determined to find out why she had returned, because it placed a timeline on how long he had to secure her presence again before she was gone. He thought this over as she slept beside him, facing the opposite wall. He couldn't figure her out or trust her when she wasn't beneath him and her return has diminished his control. The last time they spoke he was in the process of slamming her face against the wall out of jealousy, but that was then and he was sure she'd forgotten or forgiven, whichever; she was there. She, Nicole, no Nikki, who had held his stash in her dorm room when his car was searched by the police, his reliable alibi whose loyalty knew no bounds was lying with him. The years they had spent together were glued with her fear of him but more so her guilt; the guilt of aborting a baby at seventeen so she could escape him and go to college, the guilt of betraying him and not tipping him off when she knew the police were after him, the guilt of not loving him anymore when she should have been thankful.

He was awake with the vivid memory of her coming to him; her shaking fist rattled on his window, her nose ran onto her Fat Fried Freddy's uniform and she had walked from hell to his doorstep. He took her in without questions and held her like a father would. She silently shook when she cried. In the most romantic fantasy that night she became the Gypsy in Suzanne Vega's song, but Nicole wasn't a romanticist and, for better or worse, she became something of a wife, mother, cohort and prisoner.

I find his number, scrunch it up and throw it in my cutlery drawer. She presses pause on the movie of her life and takes a call from my sister. I love her and all that, but I don't understand why they let her live her dream and why I can't live mine. They say I chose the wrong parent to follow in the footsteps of, but I don't want to be Nicole's little girl with a badge. The field is calling me, why can't she understand that? I pick up the note and then tuck it in my jeans pocket. Maybe he'll understand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello world...to everyone who reads, wherever you are, thank you and enjoy...and Review. BlindLoveFreeSpirit dropped another hot one! Story101 should be pestered about Chapter 4...we are waiting ;)  
**

- Me.

* * *

"Tell me, how does a college girl like you end up with a small timer like that?" Rivers offered her a drink that she declined.

"I'm not with him anymore." Nicole replied defensively.

"But you were."

"When I didn't know better…yes. It's not something you'd understand, having to need someone, but I did and I don't anymore. Now give me the gun."

He sipped his Gin double. "Not so fast. You don't have to go."

"You've known me for a week and you're already telling me what to do? I don't work for _you_ either."

He had become accustomed to the backchat. It was too enticing to offend him. "You could. You should stay. You don't look like the type to let a man run you out of Chicago."

"I left a long time ago; I was a fool to think it was worth coming back."

Rivers shrugged his shoulders and opened the case on his desk, it was cleaner than she expected. He studied her as she lifted the gun with the sleeve of her shirt covering her hand. She had the eyes of a mesmerised child and handled it with care. She forgot he was there and he tried to stop thinking about her like that, like he cared, like he wanted her for more that his own use, like she meant something to him. Truth be told, he had seen her for years, never too far away from Darnell or not around at all. She was above him, above both of them, and that challenge made her all the more appealing because the influence and the fear meant nothing to her. To her, he was a criminal without meaning, someone she had outgrown even the idea of; she had rejected him before he'd even asked and for reasons beyond his control, it turned him on like hell.

"Thanks." She mustered with something of a smile.

He stood up as she packed it away. "You paid me for protection."

"I'll be walking out with it too." She retorted, never looking up.

"I can do that. Protect you."

She shook her head. "I can't afford that."

"It's not about the money. I mean it."

"I've seen what men like you call protection."

"You don't know me."

"I know Darnell and to be frank, you're the same person."

1st February 1994

A month had passed since Tiffany Pell died and Nicole was still no closer to finding out who was responsible. She listened in on Darnell's phone calls and started to learn his cycles again; if she was right, he'd leave for an out of town deal that night and have her in bed by Saturday. She was trying to avoid the latter. Darnell noticed her lying around, never saying much just thinking. This unsettled him.

"Do you remember that night when you came out with me?" She was lying on the sofa and he stood over her prodding her with the memory as he lifted the J.B. Priestley play out of her hands. She shook her head. "Of course you do, Chris got greedy and made off with my cut…it wasn't long before you shot him."

"That was an accident." She defended herself from the shameful situation she was transported to.

"It saved my life. You couldn't stop throwing up for weeks, you couldn't sleep…" He revelled in her weakness, unaware that she was pregnant at the time.

"You promised you wouldn't do this."

"All I'm saying is you had my back and there was nothing you wouldn't do for me."

"That was a long time ago. It's in the past."

"It's the past that you're afraid of. You did the right thing and I would have done the same because you and me, we're the same person." He wedged the book back in her hands, satisfied at the potent effect of the old mantra. He was halfway out the door when she stopped him.

"D?"

He smiled. "What's up?"

"Thanks. I don't think I said it, so thanks."

"There's room for one more you know." He didn't know where the invitation came from.

"It's okay. I'll find something." She leaned in to kiss him, already aware of how to falsify the passion in it. "I'll be waiting." That sounded familiar to him.

A week had passed by the time Nicole scored a position as an office temp. It paid much less than she was used to and she saw the delight in his face as she told her newly reinstated boyfriend. She was about to head 'home' and seal the deal as time was running out when her 'screw him to confusion' plan was thwarted by S.A. Fontaine. He grabbed her arm outside a café she was walking past.

"Get the fuck off me!" She yelled, pushing him with a force neither of them knew she had.

"Assaulting a federal agent, that'll cost you."

"Fed molests innocent woman in broad daylight, that'll cost _you_." The waiter stared at them through the glass window.

He took his hand off her arm. "I see you've gone back to crawling with scum."

"That doesn't concern you."

"It does when one day you're pleading innocence and the next you're in bed with Two-Strikes."

"You already took my job, what more do you want from me?"

"I don't. My boss does, so you can get in the car like a good girl…"

"Did you just call me 'girl'?"

"Or I can arrest you."

"You don't have a warrant." He felt around in his back pocket and she was right. Usually perps were so afraid of his six-foot five, two hundred and forty pound frame that they yielded to anything demand he made, but not her. She needed discipline.

"Make it quick." She said, getting in the car.

S.A.I.C. Mendonca went over the results to the four polygraph tests she'd passed and he flung them at Fontaine in fury. "She's lying."

"I know sir."

"So how does she come up clean every time?"

"I don't know sir. Either she's telling the truth or she's a damn good liar."

"I'll go with the latter."

When Mendonca sat down across from her in the interrogation room she wondered how the Pillsbury dough boy had an office job. "How did you pass the test?" She was still hooked up to the machine.

"I believe my own lies." She replied and the machine agreed. "Can you tell me what this is about?"

He ignored her request. "You've got an interested record, it makes a good read. I almost understand it; foster girl makes good but still needs a bad habit on the side to remember where she's from."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

The polygraph agreed with that as well, forcing him to turn it off. "You disappeared off the grid at seventeen but set up camp six months later in Champaign. Four years of school to work as an office temp? Make it easy on yourself."

"How?"

He turned it back on without her noticing. "Help us help you. You know who's behind the overdose."

"No I don't but I want to."

"You're not lying, so it says."

"I'm not lying, period."

"So what about your boyfriend?"

"This has nothing to do with him."

"No? It would be convenient for you to lose your job and go back to him after…three years is it? He's not short on a coke supply is he?"

"Which question am I answering?" The buzzer sound went off and Fontaine dismissed her again unaware that she was to become his new partner.

Darnell slammed the door behind her on her entrance. "Where have you been?" The old anger was still there and she could feel it turning the room up to a tropical heat.

"5-0 was on my ass about the club. They think it's you."

The worry line in his forehead appeared. Nicole referred to it in private as his third strike line. "What did you tell them?"

"What I know…nothing. It wasn't you was it?" That question could have gone either way, resulting in a plea or a slap.

"Is that what you think?"

"That's what they think."

"Is that what _you_ think?" He asked, squeezing her wrist.

"_I_ think we've let too much stand between us and it's time that we stopped doing this."

"Doing what?" He squeezed harder. "You want to leave me?"

"No." She winced, "I want to _leave_." She looked down at her wrist and his grip loosened. "There's nothing here for us and we can't survive here, not anymore. I'll go wherever you take me but I can't stay."

He grabbed her by the waist, forced her body to touch his in inescapable closeness. "Don't ever leave me." He spoke as half-man, half-child.

"I won't. I promise." She said, afraid she was telling the truth. His touch changed from possession to compassion and she remembered what that felt like to be with his better self, to have a reason to love him and to believe someone loved her too. She rubbed the back of his neck, feeling more like Nikki than ever. "Remember that night you took me out with you, when Chris got greedy and I couldn't believe what I'd done? I didn't do it for you…I did it for me because me and you…"

"We're the same person."

"So you slept with him?" I ask the obvious as she hands me some screws.

"It's not something I'm proud of. Yes. I was at a crossroads, deciding what to do with my life and afterwards when I felt these hands aliens on me and knew my mind was already far far away. All it took was for my feet to follow."

"Why did you love him?" I ask unfolding the instructions to reveal a sixteen sheet blueprint.

"It was force of habit but I never loved that way again, thank God. What's up?"

She reads behind my mask and I've never liked her ability to turn my pages and highlight whatever she finds unclear. "I've been thinking about my life and what I have to show for it; it's not that I don't like my job…"

"You have a great job. I thought you loved the firm so what's wrong?"

"It doesn't feed me like it should."

"What more do you expect it to do? If it gives you purpose and makes you want to get up in the morning you can't ask for more."

"You did."

"I never asked; I let it happen. I let the Bureau take over my life, my relationships, even my family and I paid for letting my job be my all in more ways than you can imagine."

"I know you gave up Dad and left Aunt Kelly in the lurch..."

"_You_ wouldn't have been here Maya." Her interruption silences me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys, in order to understand this fic you have to read Untitled and When Doves Cry. Keep dropping reviews and PMs as I feel this will end next chapter. We'll see. Anyway, keep on plugging (Missing writers) and enjoy.  
**

- Me.

* * *

She can't take it back. I hammer away at what is supposed to be a bookshelf until there are dents in the wood. She doesn't stop me for a second. She has never pacified me and today is no exception. My will has always rivalled hers; it a part of who I am…who _we_ are. Our pragmatism organised my life into what was expendable and what was not. She sacrificed children, love and family during those years just as I have forgone the stability of a real nine-to-five to walk her path. I let go of the hammer and my muscles relax; the evidence of eighteen months of military style training, all to be prepared. I'm leaving for Virginia in a matter of weeks and I choose this opportunity to break it to her. The word 'Quantico' doesn't even raise her eyebrow. She meets 'Agent' with nonchalance. Even namedropping Pollock doesn't get to her the way I thought it would. Like a toddler in a tantrum I want her attention and she's depriving me. It pins me to the floor, subdued like it always did and she gets to me even further by saying in a calm, frustratingly relaxed tone, "Where was I?"

"Nikki," She held her breath. Luckily he couldn't see how tight her jam was clenched in the dark.

"What's wrong baby?"

"I need you…"

"I need you too." She murmured, interrupting him.

"I need you to come out with me."

She turned on the lamp on her bedside table. "We're supposed to be leaving soon; you want to get tied up in all that?"

"When I make some more money we'll be out of here."

"What about the eight grand?" She referred to the money she counted for him days ago, that she had already exchanged for the steel piece she was hiding in their bedroom. "That's enough for us."

"He kissed her condescendingly. "For you maybe."

"What if you get hurt?"

"That's why you'll be there with me. Chris, remember?"

"That was a lucky shot and I still can't live with myself over that D." She couldn't mask her fear, or her guilt. That night she held the gun in her hand she didn't know what she was doing so she shut her eyes and pull the trigger, adding sharp note to the crescendo of gunfire playing around her. She didn't shoot Chris like Darnell thought; his brother did, and behind her shut eyes Nicole accidentally shot Courtney in the knee, relegating him to the wheelchair-bound life he lived now. In bed, she was shaking and he tried to hold her still. It felt nice, to be in the embrace that bound them; but not the context. He did have the ability to treat her well but having that on his terms was the reason why she couldn't trust him, and why the gun from Rivers was underneath his pillow. "I'll come with you."

Her change of mind came too easily, he expected more resistance. "Why?"

"Just so I know you're okay."

She turned off the light but he couldn't get back to sleep. He lay there watching her, wondering if getting her back was such a good idea. There was something unhinged about her, something she was hiding and he refused to take what she said at face value. It was a performance of Nikki that he was sleeping with but Nicole seemed to have crept in and he couldn't remember when. Nicole was where all the problems began; she was independent, didn't listen to him and worst of all had the nerve to leave him. That's why he sent Tiffany Pell to Ricochet in the first place; she would have walked to the Moon for some good draw, and all it took was one-slip up to place Nikki back in the bucket of crab where she belonged, but Nikki was long gone. That's why Nicole awoke to a demolished room where she had gone through ever piece of furniture, item of clothing and everything she had brought with her.

"What are you doing?"

"What are _you_ doing?" He fired the question back with his nostrils flared as he flung the drawer across the room. He didn't understand his own anger or frustration but at least hoped it would scare a confession out of her and give him something to understand her better or at all. "Do you think I don't know what you came back here for?" He didn't but hoped these open-ended questions would answer themselves.

"I don't know what you think about anything anymore, least of all me."

Anger knows no reason, which Darnell demonstrated as he struggled to decode her response. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Last night I thought…I _felt_, you loved me, that it would be better, that it _was_ better between us but it's not enough. You don't love me, you don't even like me and you definitely don't trust me. So I give up." She drew the gun from behind his pillow. "You have it; there no use in trying to protect you anymore. Have it."

His heavy breathing provided the soundtrack to his eyes flitting up and down, from her face to the gun and back again. She had him mentally pinned against the wall and he surrendered. "Keep it."

Nicole looked up from the spreadsheet long enough to catch a glimpse at S.A. Fontaine's face. "Reception sent me up."

"Oh joy." She said with enough sarcasm for four people. "Did you remember your warrant this time?"

"This is off the record. Your boyfriend's in Terre Haute, Indiana."

"And?"

"He was found with fifteen thousand dollars in cash."

"Maybe he went to the casino."

Fontaine resisted the urge to raise his voice, not that he could be heard in the noisy office. Sixty temps were kept apart by four-foot-tall grey dividers and four companies operated on that floor alone. "You know he didn't. So how did he get so rich so fast?"

"I have no idea."

"Forensics examined his car and found traces of bodily fluids on the back seat. _Female_ bodily fluids."

"Whoop de whoo, we were apart for a long time. So he's not a monk; big surprise."

"It is when they belong to Tiffany Pell."

That stopped her in her tracks. "Where are they holding him?"

Nicole posted bail for him out of her curiosity and own pocket. A bruised from being manhandled by the arresting officer was forming on his face. She traced over it with her finger, never touching his skin. She once thought he brought out her gentler side but came to learn it was misplaced altruism that he took advantage of. "I should have come with you."

He shook his head and she saw something brewing behind his eyes. "Where's the gun?"

"I hid it."

"What are you doing out here? What if they search the house?"

"They won't find anything."

"What makes you so sure?"

"What have I done now?"

"Nothing. Get in the car."

"No. Not until you tell me…"

"It's your fault."

"How?"

"You wanted to leave Chicago; that's why I got arrested. I'm on _two_ strikes. Now get in the car."

Nicole got in the driver's seat and considered riding over his foot. He slumped into the passenger's seat. "The way they followed me, it's like the pigs knew where I was going."

"I'm the only person you can trust D. Don't turn on me because of this."

"I'm thinking about that." He said as they got on the highway. "There's one thing I have to tie up tonight."

"What?"

"That bastard Rivers."

We salvaged my bookcase and the dents gave it character; Scott character. We eat together for the first in a very long time. The storm has cleared between us for the time being and after a few glasses of wine she asks, "So you really want to join, huh?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys, I took a while writing this because I wanted it to be real, to be the best it could because you deserve that. So wherever you're reading this from enjoy it, drop a review (anonymous/non-member ones included) and whatever you're doing in life love it. Props to BlindLoveFreeSpirit for your genius and Story 101 for finally getting that Chapter 4 to us (we want more!!)  
**

- Me.

* * *

She's reluctant to tell the rest of her story, maybe because she was a criminal even by default. She's staring at me with a puzzled expression, as though she's envisaging me wearing a badge and an FBI jacket and she can't believe it to be real. She brushes off my invitation to resume her story.

"What are you holding on to?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"When I told you she was dead; you said nothing. At her funeral you didn't cry." She, at least, permitted a tear to drop. "So what are you holding on to?"

"A lot." I reduce my reaction to the truth of their relationship to two words.

"It'll eat you up inside Maya."

"She hurt you."

"Right; _me_ not you. You can't punish her anymore; she's not here."

"I know that."

"So why are you punishing me?"

"I'm not…I don't mean to."

"I'm not going to lecture you about valuing your life when I've hung mine over a cliff too many times to remember; but I've defended yours with everything I am Maya. Don't do this."

"Why not?"

"It's a huge sacrifice, an incomprehensible sacrifice. The Bureau _über alles_; love, life even family. It chisels dents and drills holes into you. It shapes you and creeps up on you without you noticing. It's a bad dream you can't get out of until one day you wake up; beaten, broken and changed, and it's not a question of it you can recognise yourself. The question is; can you live with who you've become?"

They crossed the border between Indiana and Illinois in no time; they were alone with the highway and Nicole had not even glanced at him once. Her hand was firmly on the clutch and her eyes faced the open road. Willie Hutch's "I wanna be where you are" was playing on the radio.

"I don't think this is a good idea." Darnell though she sounded more like Nikki that ever but didn't know if that was a good sign. "You just got out hours ago. This isn't smart. Rivers will see you coming from a mile away. What if you get hurt? What if you get killed?"

"I won't." He replied with certainty.

"We're supposed to change, to leave, so why are we moving backwards?"

"I'm where I've always been Nikki. You moved."

"So that's what this is about? Playing seventeen again because I moved ahead with my life?"

"Pull over on Julep Street and take the second right."

Nicole pulled into the familiar place but left the keys in the ignition. "We can turn away Darnell and just go." His ears pricked up at the mention of his name; this was Nicole talking and he resented her for it. "You wanted me and I'm here so what is this about?"

"It's about loyalty."

"That kind of loyalty doesn't mean anything. Don't do this."

"I won't." His giving in was too easy a defeat for her to take at face value. "You will."

"Mom." Her hand is shaking and the green tea is running down her hand but she can't feel it from that place she's in. I call her again, louder, until she stops me.

"I'm okay." She says to reassure me but I know better. "I was just thinking that's all. Back then I thought I had it all figured out; I went to him for the truth but all I found was the truth about myself. To love him was my passion albeit wrong and dangerous. I hung on the most the worst it got and the deeper I fell in because bad habit die harder. Old habits even more so, but above all I never stopped chasing the thrill and risking my life, and the FBI, that you're so desperate to be a part of, was my prison, my personal war and my Darnell."

He didn't know what she was thinking but he was sure he didn't like the way she was eyeing him. She looked like she was above it all; like on the first day they met when she let MC Lyte's I cram to understand you blast through her Sony walkman and block out his attempts to talk to her. She looked past him even though he was blocking her sight and when he grabbed the loose arm of her backpack to get her attention he feet instinctively squared up to fight. She was bold and he was finally matched by the only girl in Chicago who didn't meet an offer to get the back seat of his Audi Quattro with enthusiasm. The repulsion in her eyes was undercut with a flicker of admiration as if to say, "Good body, bad heart" but her don't touch policy was overcome with the caution warning that was written all over him and daring prevailed, eventually drumming up enough emotions for her to love him. If he had understood Nicole at all he would have known she looked at his with the eyes of a lover, friend, victim and mother all at once, but he didn't know her and that's why despite her protests that she wasn't a killer and couldn't do what he asked of her, he still demanded that she would go in and do what never could; sacrifice himself.

Nicole knew her way around the warehouse as she had been there before by that didn't make it feel less like the set of a horror movie when the black man or woman always dies first. She opened his office door without making it squeak and as he turned to face her his voice changed on the phone. He became abrupt and lowered his voice as he gestured for her to come closer, finally putting it down.

"It's late." He said.

"I know. I came to talk. You're good at that."

What do we have to talk about?"

"Lots. Seeing as we both know what happened to Tiffany Pell at Ricochet, right?"

"I don't know all about that."

"You know he was fucking her 'til she went through the pearly gates and so do I."

He poured them each a double. "The truth shouldn't matter to you. There's nothing you didn't already know."

"I don't know why you gave me the gun. Darnell could have it, he could kill you…"

"You wouldn't give it to him. You don't love him. That much I know."

"That doesn't explain why the gun you gave me…"

"You said. The gun I _sold_ you."

"Whatever. It's not off the street, I had it checked; the serial number came up clean and it wasn't filed off like all the others I've seen."

He cracked a smile. "I'm impressed."

"I know what you're about Rivers."

"I was starting to think the same thing."

She took a sip and peered through the blinds. "Who's in the car?"

"Your boyfriend."

"I meant the navy blue Hyundai Accent; I've seen it before."

He downed the drink in one gulp. "Why did you come here tonight Nicole?"

"We each have what the other one needs and our time is running out."

When Rivers advanced towards her she didn't flinch. "Time's on our side from where I'm standing." He spoke into her neck and she could smell the Bajan rum doing its dance in the air.

"You once asked me what a girl like me is doing with a small timer like him. The question is; what's a…"

Darnell barged through the door unable to take anymore of it. What incensed him more that their conversation was the engaged look in her eyes, something she could never give hi, a sign that she was presently absent. Nicole recalled the tremors in Nikki's heart at the glare he omitted. It had been years since she was truly on the receiving end; the memory what condensed to snapshots. Kegs. Frat boys. Togas. Nicole. Darnell. Jealousy. Insecurity. Weakness. Her face being bounced across walls like a tennis ball. Sorry. Sorry. _Sorry_.

The three of them were stuck in a prelude to flaring tempers and abusive words. There was silence shadowing the protestations, allegations and reverberations. There was stillness before chaos…which Rivers broke with a small gesture. He took the bulging brown envelope from the small drawer in his desk and emptying its contents of hundred-dollar bills on the table. It was then that the fragile glass ceiling had enough of the heat and shattered above their heads, leaving them forever changed and completely taken over. Fear flew away aware of it's futility in the present situation. Darnell turned to her, his nostrils flaring from the fire he breathed by nature. "So this is where you bought the gun?"

"So this is where you bought the coke?" She didn't even wait for the crack; it was a split second before he slapped her with so much anger her head was thrown back. Knowing how he moved she didn't attempt to fight back, blow by blow, with each shove, under each kick she let him because eventually he would crouch down to see what he had done open his mouth to say that word that burned iron into her skin and she would respond with the one thing she was wanted to do for year but never could. Before he ended his first syllable she struck him in the face with the Les Baer Premier II Tactical .45 Pistol and the sheer bluntness alone was enough to reduce him to an immobile body, in the wreckage of it all. The pain seeped in and she heard a voice that sounded distinctly like hers yet outside of her body letting out screams and cries of being moved and being touched when and where everything hurt. A sharp prick was all it took to put her to sleep and Rivers resisted the urge to cradle a body that did not belong to him.


	6. Chapter 6

**So people, I won't drag this out. Adieu, Kwa Herini, I'm out folks. Life has its chapters and I've got to get lost and found in the new one. Happy Birthday (soon) to my mother in all her royalty and thanks to the readers, writers, reviewers, PMers and Missing fans worldwide. Asante.**

- Me.

* * *

They stopped sedating her a few days later and she woke up to a cosy room in an out-of-town military hospital. Her period of solitude, filled with watching after-school specials and soap operas, ended when a familiar face invaded her space. The flowers he wielded were locked in a tight nervous grip. It took her a while to pay him any attention as she assumed he was a doctor at first, but the guilt on his face said he couldn't have been. When their eyes met she uncharacteristically had nothing to say. He cleared his throat and she offered him a seat at the edge of the bed. She hummed a melody to fill the silence.

"Any lyrics?"

She cracked a smile. "Broken body, broken heart…it's a song. A country song. Broken body, broken heart, whatever's broke you tore apart…"

"You really do believe your own lies, don't you?"

"Only the ones that help me live. So you're a fed?"

"I prefer the term, 'undercover agent'."

"Instead of insider, rat, snitch…"

"Thanks."

"I'm not judging. What you did…it was…weird."

"You almost blew my cover."

"_You_ almost blew your cover. If it were me I'd make sure I was out of there before anyone connected the dots. If I can then a professional criminal definitely can; not that I' one of those of course."

"Of course. That's what I came to talk to you about."

She swatted his hint away as it wasn't of interest to her. "So what do they call you at the office?"

"Special Agent Moses Tyrell."

"I guess the 'let my people go' jokes are tired."

"As tired as whoever tells them. You concealed the weapon like a…"

"Pro?"

"Something like that."

"I learnt that…from watching the guys down the block."

"That makes me wonder what else you've seen."

She got that feeling in her stomach that always led to trouble. "So, what's next?"

"You can go back to your life or you can be a rat like me and train at Quantico."

"I meant for you."

"That would be telling."

"No thanks; I'm no good at following orders."

"It's not boot camp."

"I don't follow, I don't listen and I'm determined to contradict figures of authority."

"Franklin High 1986."

"So you read high school transcripts too?"

"That's beside the point. You knew what he was doing. You knew what I was doing. That's what I'm paid to do."

"How much?"

"Does that mean you're interested?"

"That means I'm taking in applications. I don't need this Riv…Moses. I have a life."

"It'll take a lot to rebuild what you had."

"I won't try. I'll do something new. Go to another city, another state and start over. Seeing as the Bureau's had such a great time fucking up my life, you can see why I'm reluctant to give up my freedom papers."

"Between you and me, they can't teach what you've got."

"And what's that?" She asked, suddenly more interested.

"Moxie."

"How long is it before I can shoot to kill?" He laughed at how serious and how beautiful she was at the same time. His taste for wounded birds was a known fact but he knew that this situation was drawing him to her in a way that was detrimental to both of them.

"Long enough."

"Too long if you ask me; besides I don't need to shoot; blunt force trauma is the reason why I'm still breathing."

"Do you want to know how he's doing?"

"Not really."

"Q-school." He said, remembering his purpose. "Think about it."

"I might. I'm a hard sell, right?" She asked, putting up a challenge.

"If this is anything to go by."

He was about to leave when she asked, "Do they teach to how to come on to the mark there too?"

"Only when it's appropriate." She gave him a mock salute as he left and occasionally glanced at the pamphlets he'd left behind.

_July 1994_

"I thought you had money put away for a rainy day." Kelly said, sitting on the edge of her bed and watching her pack. They had done this enough times before but this time, Kelly wasn't coming along.

"I do and that's how I intend to keep it. You know me; I never tap into my reserve."

"Stingy heifer." She murmured under her breath. Nicole threw a Bears sweater in her direction.

"Have it, for the draught in your apartment."

"About that…" Kelly started to confess.

"I already know Kelly."

"Nikki,"

"Don't explain. I'm not your mother so don't answer to me or explain the lies, just take care of yourself. No-one else will."

"If you're lonely I can stay, seeing as you don't have a man and all."

"I need a clean break. This has nothing to do with Darnell or any other three-legged creature."

"I thought you said Virginia was only temporary, that you were trying it out."

"It was. _I_ was."

"So why did you come back early?"

"I can't explain." Nicole didn't ant to admit she had 'graduated' from Quantico in record time not because of her tactical shooting record or her quick wit but because of her sandpaper relationship with her supervisor. He was so tired of failing at disciplining or changing her that he shipped her out of the state like a problem child sent back to the orphanage. She was unofficially a member of the Special Operations division, where most rookies lost their lives by taking chances and making decisions fast tracking them their coffins.

"You never can. What's so good about the FBI anyway?"

"The way I see it; my life's been on a downward slope since New Years' so it's about time I opted for the safety net, before I crash and burn. Enough about me. Any plans?"

"To make it to tomorrow I guess."

"You have to think beyond then, I mean what if…" Nicole answered the phone. "Yes I'm packing right now…no I won't miss the plane sorry jet…yes I remember where the office is…fine…bye." Kelly rolled her eyes. "It's not easy for me."

"Of course it is. This is what you do; you just get up and go with no thought for me. I can't do that. I can't just leave."

"You can leave _him_."

"It's always about Benny."

"No. It's about you and the way you use him to dodge responsibility. You love the junk and you love feeling sorry for yourself. God knows you don't love him."

"So this is you loving me?"

"This is me saying I can't do this anymore. I can't pretend it's not affecting me, that I don't care because I do…but you don't. Look I paid your rent for the rest of the year, do what you want."

"Why do you talk to me like I'm nothing?"

"I'm sad. I'm sad Kelly. You're my rainy day and you could end up just like Tiffany. I'll call you."

"Don't bother."

Pollock called yesterday to ask what I was waiting for; I still can't answer him or myself.

"No wonder you're so good at hurting each other. It's all you knew."

"I've always loved Kelly but love isn't enough. I wanted to make it better for her but when the time came that was her call, not mine, and I was frustrated that I couldn't change it. I couldn't make her either."

"It's funny how it turns out. All those fights because you couldn't make her who you wanted her to be, and now, you can't do the opposite to me."

"It's not funny when I've given you my best and still…"

We're consumed by that tension once more. It's seeping in through the walls like a damp smell, so pungent we can't escape it.

"So what happened to Moses?"

"We're still friends." She's blushing and I refuse to believe that's all there is to tell. "Anyway, my first post was in Los Angeles with that bastard Fontaine. They thought an old-school, ex-military type could handle me. If being with the King of the Boys Club couldn't do it nothing else could but he got shot eight months in. Don't get me wrong; it's been a good life, sometimes it didn't feel like life at all, as great as it is, the Bureau consumes you. You can never get those years back. You piece together the remnant of your soul that haven't been jaded or buried with your partners and you try your hardest to have enough love in you to give to someone else. What's lost you can never get back but the parts I saved and hid deepest inside myself, I gave to you. So you wouldn't choose death and flirt with it until you get burned. So you might have a chance at not passing on this self-destructive legacy. So you could live."

"What if I never find my place out there? What if I never find something to live for, purpose, passion?"

"It's just a job."

She drops her shoulders as she diminishes what she dedicated her life to; I've never heard her speak like this in all my life. I suppose she'd say anything to stop me but her eyes tell me it's not anything; it's the truth. He called me last night before I made my way out and told me what to pack but I know if I leave she won't be there to send me off with love or prayers or hope. I know she won't stand to see me get hurt, fail, fall or die. She will never give me her blessing, she can't, because she can't lose her mother then allow her daughter to die. I am her Achilles heel, that one day she will lose me to something she couldn't shield me from; that I will know pain she can't feel in my place, that in all her efforts to steer me away I have grown to be just like her; the reflections cares her to death. She loves me today with the utmost respect for the value of my life, with an oath to keep me whole and near and with the greatest desire to thwart my dream in the name of unconditional, unfathomable and sacrificial love. She tells me I am somebody, like the Glenn Jones song, and there is no greater achievement than being my mother and her daughter. That the world got it all wrong, that the FBI is a religion with no saviour, no promise and no everlasting life.

"It's not enough just to be your daughter."

"In the Bureau that's all you'll ever be. To top me, you'll have to die first. I can't let that happen."

"It's not your decision to make."

"Neither is it yours. What I feel is so beyond us I'll dedicate my life to stopping you; so really, the challenge you're looking for is right here. I'll fight to the death to protect you and if you wind and I go first, fair dues. But is it really worth it? Is it worth the loss of you, of me, of us?"

"Why did you give up the field?"

"So you would know how it felt to be free of the fears that kept me there for so long. I needed to be somebody so bad that I didn't _have_ anybody. The people we love root us Maya, they give us a reason to stay and live. You anchored me in a way no-one ever has. That kind of power is a dangerous thing."

"I have to leave to tomorrow."

"If you can't leave today you never will but like the song says, _you can leave but your heart will stay_."


End file.
